Mr. Samad is a co-founder of Octaviant Financial and currently serves as the firm’s President & Chief Executive Officer. In 2010, Mr. Samad founded Octaviant LLC, a merchant bank and specialized holding company dedicated to the life sciences and healthcare. Mr. Samad focused his practice at Octaviant LLC on strategic and financial advisory, earning the trust of the executives he supported and their investors. It was during his work as an advisor to gene therapy companies that Mr. Samad began to focus on the market access challenges facing gene and cell therapies. During his tenure as an investment banker, Mr. Samad worked extensively on business transactions for life sciences and medical device companies, focused on structuring private and public equity financings and M&A transactions. Mr. Samad has advised immunotherapy, infectious disease, biodefense, gene and cell therapy, and regenerative medicine companies. Prior to his role in banking, Mr. Samad worked in the biotechnology field, and served as the Vice President of Business Development for StormBio, Inc., a company focused on pandemic influenza. Mr. Samad attended Rutgers College, and is the author of numerous publications on the subject of funding for biotechnology research in the United States. Mr. Samad focuses time working with non-profits on healthcare issues and supports the development of economic empowerment initiatives for people with disabilities.

Mr. Nolan is a co-founder of Octaviant Financial and currently serves as the firm’s Chief Investment & Science Officer. Before his charge with Octaviant, he was a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager of the WBB Life Sciences Long/Short portfolio—a fund dedicated to investing in early-stage life science companies—at WBB Asset Management, a division of WBB Securities, LLC. Prior to WBB, Mr. Nolan led a quantitative investment research team at JPMorgan Asset Management and worked in fund’s research at Barclays Wealth. In addition to his time on Wall Street, Mr. Nolan spent several years as a researcher and epidemiologist at various medical institutions including the University of Pennsylvania and New York University. He has been published in peer reviewed journals on topics ranging from environmental toxicology to hepatitis B infection in children. Mr. Nolan holds a MPH degree from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cornell University and is an Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Drew University Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. He is Series 7, 63, and 65 licensed.

Mr. Marion has been involved in the health care payment and insurance industry since 1985, holding executive roles for TPAs and insurance companies. Early in his career he managed an industry affinity P & C program, including loss prevention activities. He spent 10 years as lead executive of health services for C. L Frates and Company in Oklahoma City, managing a block of business that included self-funded accounts, PPO and HMO administration and the insured health program for the Oklahoma State Medical Association. As VP-COO of Strategic Alliances for American Fidelity Assurance Company he led the specialty health business including all stop-loss, excess and medical reinsurance lines. While in this role he managed the successful accommodation of ACA related requirements for all lines including medical indemnity coverage. In 2016 he initiated and successfully completed AFA’s entry into the direct stop loss market. An Associate in Risk Management, he holds a BA degree from Syracuse University and an MS from SUNY Syracuse. He has been an active participant in industry affairs, developer and presenter of CME course material for physicians and a participant in state legislative activity for Medicaid reform.